The Long Coat, the Rebel, and the Princess
by Abby Ebon
Summary: Xmas gift for Itzika.JebxZerox?Az. Slash. Set after Tin Man. Jeb’s father sent him to free Zero from one the most creative of tortures of the Long Coats. Things only get complicated when they run across some Long Coats looting along the road…


**The Long Coat, the Rebel, and the Princess **

_Abby Ebon_

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Summary: X-mas present for Itzika. JebxZerox?Az. Slash. Plot - set after Tin Man. Jeb's father sent him to free Zero from one the most creative of tortures of the Long Coats. Things only get complicated when they run across some Long Coats looting along the road…

_Warnings_; Yes, you did indeed read the words 'slash' and 'JebxZero' together…no they don't really do anything interesting until a few chapters later…also – if you read this, please be aware that this will involve 'slash' which is the written homosexual romance of two fictional characters who were otherwise not inclined to each other in "reality". But – this is fan-fiction, and I can do what I want with them. If you are not mature enough to read this story – please turn your attention to the 'back' button – if you are not of age to read this material in your country/region of origin – again, feel free to take any number of 'escapes' offered.

That being said – this has spoilers for Tin Man. Enjoy.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

"You've _got_ to be kidding me." Jeb stressed the one word, appearing very much the rebellious teenager with his hands upon his hips – his eyes narrowed upon his fathers all too serious face.

Jeb's jaw was clenched with his temper; he was at least as stubborn as the man – his own father! (that he had thought his father dead for most of his life didn't matter in the face of the announcement his father had just told him) - who leaned, smirking amusedly, against the stone wall directly in front of Jeb.

Jeb was young – he could admit that – but he was _at least_ as old as DG who his father was somehow close to – protected – _and_ managed to respect.

Unfortunately, his father still seemed to think he was a child – for Jeb could see what was happening clearly – his father merely wanted him out of the way in the nasty business of trials and executions of the Long Coats that they all know was pending in the week to follow.

How his father had gotten to the Queen to go along with sending him away, he could only guess. Perhaps it was a favor – perhaps she truly cared about the traitor…

"I'm afraid not, son. The Queen's demanded it after she heard of his fate– and there is no one else to …free…Zero." His father's lip curled at the word 'free'. Both father and son had suffered at the mercy of it…and despite their mutual…dislike, of the man – the suit was one of the worst tortures the Long Coats had devised.

Jeb shook away the chilling feeling of bidding horror at the thought of it. No one – in Jeb's opinion should suffer it…Still, Jeb was, for all accounts –a grown up – so why did his father have the nerve to send him on errands?

On top of it – his father had been the one to put the damned man in the suit – but was _he_ being asked to free him and bring him back by the Queen? No – it fell to Jeb, on top of even that outrage – the Queen wanted him brought back _alive_.

"Why can't I at least bring one of my men along?" That too was an issue – he and his men had been split purposefully apart – most of them being drafted into the re-established law enforcement that was the tin men – he couldn't be happier for the men who had longed for that duty – but they seemed to have had forgotten him under his fathers orders.

"We need them here." His father answered softly – regretfully, he was right though – and Jeb knew that, the people needed them – the Royal Family needed them. Hell, even the erratic Glitch needed his father - or one of the others he had traveled with - to keep his memory of their adventures from fleeing.

Heartbreakingly – once his brain had been removed, it had begun to decay – only the fluid had kept it 'alive' all this time, but there was no 'putting it back' – the fluid was something none of them had ever seen the likes of and if Az could not remember the formula the witch had used, there was a real chance Glitch would lose his brain forever.

Oddly enough – he didn't seem bothered by the possibility; merely knowing where it was now was enough for him. Being around the Queen - and in a safe location - had aided him in remembering who he was. He was still the Advisor – for even being erratic, he was brilliant.

"I wish I could go with you…" They both knew why he couldn't…Jeb only then realized what asking Jeb to leave must be costing his father. There were no tin men – no long coats on the roads now – and leaving the palace meant he might encounter anything or anyone who would wish him harm. He would be putting his life in danger – for a man he had seen kill his mother, and had thought had killed his mother…

"I know." Jeb only said, sighing and turning away, his mind already turning to what he would take with him and what he would need.

Before Jeb could go far, his father strode toward him, pulling him into a one armed hug, Jeb tensed – unsure at what to do. For years – no one had ever touched him, no one had dared.

Yet – his father seemed determined to make up for the affection he had lost in all the years he had been locked away in a tin suit. Slowly, Jeb sighed softly and returned the hug reassuringly. There was no need to reassure his father with words – they both knew that if Jeb did not come back, his father would go out looking for him, Queen or no Queen.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Zero heard the '_tap, tap'_ of knuckles rapping on the glass – it made him flinch wake from the light doze he had fallen into. He known the moment Az had lost this war – she was very likely dead, for he had felt the pull of her leaving – fleeing, in his very soul. It had shaken him – his skin feeling both cool and all too hot in the enclosure of the tin suit. If he ever rid himself of it – it was likely he would be claustrophobic.

What had kept him going were the memories that came bit-by-bit, there was – after all, a reason why he had been called Zero. He did not remember who he was – there had only been Az – Az who he had loved, who he had done everything he could for.

But now…now – he was remembering things that he didn't know the origins of – things that tugged at his conscious continuously, and if it hadn't already been nearly imposable to sleep standing and locked within the tin suit, it was now only worse with the connection with Az torn and all these…things – emotions, memories – feelings, pouring into him, as if trying to fill in the gap.

Zero hated it – hated being helpless, and alone without Az - sometimes, for no reason at all, he would find he was crying. Unable to wipe the tears away – he was left with only the feeling that he had betrayed them all – Az, and those shadowed faces that plagued him.

From behind hooded eyelids, Zero saw one of those very shadowed faces was staring back at him from outside the glass globe of the tin suit. Zero did not respond to the taunt – sometimes, his imagination would run away from him, sometimes he'd hear voices – voices asking why, haunting him.

Instead of going away – as any proper illusion should when ignored, the face on the other side of the glass, once pulled into an annoyed sneer – now began to look worried. Then it went away – Zero stifled the urge to sigh – or scream, they always left him alone. Then – amazingly, he heard the soft scrape and thump of flesh against metal that Zero had become all too familiar with.

Zero knew he was damaged somehow – that the things he saw weren't real – but they had never made 'real' noise before – not a noise outside a voice. Then, alike a miracle – the tin suit was being pulled open – Zero couldn't catch his balance on time and tumbled onto the forest floor, panting – trying to draw in as much clean, un-metallic tainted air as quickly as possible.

His breath shuddered out and he tilted his head to the side to see who had rescued him – for a moment, he didn't recognize the boy – then like a storm breaking over his mind – he knew who he was – this was Cain's boy – the boy who had wanted to take his fingers off – who had humiliated him – who he had let think – by taunts and curl sneers, his father was dead.

The boy was a boy no longer – but Zero let himself lay prone at his feet – he did not think he could will himself up off the forest floor just yet.

"Pathetic – just pathetic, Zero…" The boy grumbled above him, the features of the face looking down at him were twisted between disgust and a sickening amount of superiority. Then it seemed to dawn on him that Zero was in no condition to just take off back to the palace without resting for at least the night.

He gave a long suffering sigh, the kind when one realized one had to do what one did not want to do. For a while, all Zero did was lay on the grass and soak up what light the sun offered him – watching as Jeb – yes, that was the young mans name – went about making a camp. When he finished, he came back to standing over Zero – hands on his hips, looking more then a little exasperated that Zero hadn't moved in the least.

"I'm not hauling your ass into the tent, Zero – you don't deserve it." He looked disgusted at the thought of even touching him. Jeb actually believed what he said too – no matter that he was slightly worried about the other mans physical and mental heath – a tin suit did things to people – Cain had been lucky – or just plain too stubborn to go insane, and Jeb…well, Jeb had only been in the suit a day.

Zero grunted with the small effort required to move limbs stiffened from more then a week in a tin suit – he managed to get to his hands and knees – lights were flaring up in his head, he felt as if there was a bubble around his brain, a bubble the lights were taunting.

Without glancing at anything but his own body and the ground – for he could not look into Jeb's gaze – the boy – the young man, had seen him sobbing, begging, for pity – now he only saw him too weakened to move without feeling ill or dizzy.

He had more pride then that – he _remembered_ having more pride then that – or had that just been the pride his bond with Az had given him?

Zero shook off the thoughts – lifting his weight upward in one burst of motion – forcing him self to stand without reaching for the ground or trees to steady himself, for all that he felt sickened by the motion – and dared not to look up – he was, again – upright though he felt as if he wanted to hurl. That would make a lovely impression – managing to stand, only to fall to his knees and hurl – or rather spit, for there was nothing in his stomach - up.

Summoning up the pride that come from the fact he had not, in fact, hurled – he looked up – meeting Jeb's own eyes.

Jeb, in that moment – realized he was actually in control of the other man. A man he remembered taking his mothers life – taking his father from him. A man his father had had pity for. In that moment, Jeb understood what his father had felt for the man – an empathy, having been at Zero's mercy and finding the situation reversed. They were forced to see themselves in Zero.

Jeb looked away first, realizing only then that he had done what he had wanted to get revenge – something that made Zero, well, Zero was broken. Zero was helpless without him, for all that he was free, he did not know yet what to do with himself. That was the essential difference between Zero – and Jeb and his father, both had a reason to continue on after the tin suit.

Zero knew – absolutely, that there was no reversing that the victors of the war now controlled the O.Z. and in the sweeping of the changes to come – Zero had been displaced in it all…left behind- unlike Jeb and the rest of the people the victory had aided, Zero did not know what do with himself.

Then, Jeb was tempted to kill Zero, look coldly in the other mans eyes and shoot him dead – for his own sake – Zero was helpless.

Which was why Jeb had turned away – he did not want to be responsible for leading a broken man to the Queen's mercy. He did not want to see that broken man die for a reason that now, with everyone safe – with life in the O.Z. returning to normal – seemed so senseless.

Jeb hated Zero – there was no changing that, but the Zero before him was different – changed in some fundamental way, that no longer made him Zero, but a broken man that Jeb could learn to pity.

Jeb shook off the ill feeling of aiding his mother's murderer, even on the road to his execution. Jeb sat by the fireside, looking into the mesmerizing flames – and tried to forget that for a moment he had sympathized with his vowed enemy.

The fire crackled as Zero lurched foreword – walking to the warmth, awkwardly seating him self on the opposite side of the fire. Jeb did not look up again to look at Zero for the rest of the night.

Zero – for all that he was no longer shut away in the tin suit, felt as if he should be, for all that he sensed he was no longer needed – there was no one Zero trusted anymore, no Az – and certainly no Long Coats. He had never felt more alone.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

AN: Well that's the start – the real question is if I can nudge them just enough that they click. Ah, well – nothing like a bond forged of adventure. Do tell me what you think – this is, I believe, the first story of its kind –certainly of this pairing- and was written for Itzika, the sole encouragement I have is from some PM chats - oddly also the only other person who I know of who enjoys Tin Man slash is one in the same. That almost always happens to me when I write slash.

Although, I would be amused if somehow - someone managed to merge them into a Glitch/Jeb/Zero/Cain triangle...square-shaped thing...Now saying that - I am aware I have just opened a can of worms, enjoy them, they come in many slash-friendly flavors.


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